D&AD 50th Celebration Winners

Last night saw the most successful and influential people in the worlds of design and advertising gather at South London’s Battersea Evolution for a special awards dinner and party to celebrate the history of D&AD. Individuals and companies were honoured with all-time, one-off awards and the President’s Award and Black Pencil were also handed out on the night at South London’s Battersea Evolution.

The proceedings got underway as the ceremony began to honour the biggest names – including the top-ranked agencies, studios and people – in the industry from the past five decades with the awards being handed out in eight categories including Most Awarded Agency, Design Studio, Production Company, Brand, Art Director, Copywriter, Designer and Director.

The gong for Most Awarded Ad Agency went to Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP) (above), which emerged from the 1960s as Britain's most influential advertising agency. It was a nursery for the careers of many who were to become internationally famous, including Sir Frank Lowe, Lord David Puttnam and Sir Alan Parker. Under creative director Colin Millward, CDP flourished in the 70s, winning Pencils for work including Heineken, Harvey's Bristol Cream, Bird's Eye, Hovis, Benson & Hedges and Hamlet cigars.

The Art Director award went to Neil Godfrey. Godfrey has been collecting D&AD honours since 1967, during his time at DDB. He continued to enjoy success when he moved to CDP with Tony Brignull during the 1970s. He has worked on accounts for Remington, Bird’s Eye, Fiat, Dunn & Co, Albany and B&H.

The Copywriter award went to Tony Brignull, who began his career as a trainee at JWT but spent the majority of his working life at CDP with interludes at DDB. With Godfrey, Brignull formed probably the most successful creative partnership in the history of British advertising. The pair’s D&AD Pencil count runs well into double figures.

Top Production Company on the night was Gorgeous Enterprises (below). Founded by Chris Palmer in 1996 and shortly after joined by partners Frank Budgen and Paul Rothwell in 1997, Gorgeous has collected some 15 Production Company of the Year titles and topped the Gunn Report's Most Awarded Production Company in the World list every year from 1999-2009. Its work includes Frank Budgen’s classic spots for Guinness and Levi’s and Chris Palmer’s recent work for T-Mobile.

A joint award was given on the night for the Director category to legendary helmers Tony Kaye and Frank Budgen.

Tony Kaye (below) has won awards for his work for Dunlop, Volvo and Olympus amongst many others. Kaye made several well-known music videos, including Runaway Train by Soul Asylum, Dani California by Red Hot Chili Peppers, What God Wants by Roger Walters, Help Me and God’s Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash.

After leaving Boase Massimi Pollitt advertising agency where he was a copywriter and creative director, Frank Budgen (below) began directing commercials full time in 1991 through the Paul Weiland Film Co. He soon established himself as one of the foremost commercials directors in the UK and in 1997 became a partner at Gorgeous.

“The people, companies and brands celebrated tonight are the true visionaries of the past 50 years of commercial creativity,” says Tim Lindsay, D&AD CEO. “Their work has changed the way we live our lives, the way we communicate and the way we perceive businesses and each other.”

Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy Portland was awarded with the prestigious President’s Award, presented by Rosie Arnold for 2012. Before Wieden delivered a video speech Arnold said: “when I asked myself if I should give Dan my President’s Award, I told myself, ‘Just Do It’.” The special 50th Birthday Honourary President’s Award went to legendary graphic designer Derek Birdsall.

Just one Black Pencil was awarded by the D&AD judges this year, to Lowe/SSP3, Colombia’s caign to demobilise guerrillas in Colombia. FARC Guerrillas don’t use any traditional media in Columbia, so rivers have become their most important channels of communication and transportation. Every FARC base c is built close to a river. The agency decided to use rivers as a means of delivering messages, letters and gifts at Christmas, which were sent inside waterproof capsules which lit up at night.

“Apart from the poignancy of the idea and the simple dignity of the execution, what impressed the judges about Rivers of Light was that these were soundly based on direct response technique,” says Terry Hunt, Direct jury foreman. “The best direct work is about cause and effect; the deliberate design of a communication to achieve a quantifiable response. Rivers of Light used personalisation, targeting, the most appropriate direct medium and a clear call to action to achieve its aims while creating an event of transcendent significance.  Rivers of Light is one of the purest exles of direct response creativity I have seen in 30 years in the business.”

The award for Best Designer went to David Hillman. In the sixties, Hillman art directed Nova magazine through its most successful period. In the early eighties, having become a partner at Pentagram, he executed the re-design of the Guardian that established the newspaper’s position at the forefront of UK publishing design. Best Brand was Apple and the company also scooped the award for Best Design Studio.

During its 50-year history, D&AD has set the standard for excellence in design and advertising, chioning the best work at its awards shows and in the famous Annual, and nurturing future generations of creatives through its education programmes. Winning a Yellow or Black Pencil is the crowning achievement of many careers.

There was also a fitting tribute to the late Tony Scott (below), the Hollywood film and commercials director and co-founder of RSA Films who died earlier this year.

Legendary hip hop trio De La Soul had guests partying well into the early hours as Tuesday night's ceremony came to an end to round off a brilliant occasion to mark the organisation’s 50th anniversary.